Thread by @danielmarans

New: A close look at the prosaic ingredients for Jamaal Bowman's success.

His team picked the district and candidate carefully, believed in polling, and went up on TV early thanks to a super PAC.

It was all made possible by a new left ecosystem.

huffpost.com/entry/how-jama…

Some original information here:
--@DataProgress and @justicedems used a point system to grade incumbents based on viability of primary challenges.
--Internal polling showed Bowman down 30 points in May.
--The decision to focus on Engel's absence was poll-tested.

.@WorkingFamilies and @justicedems not only overcame lefty skepticism to super PACs -- they managed to get on TV a week+ before the cavalry came for Engel.

“We can really say we are using every single tool in our arsenal to put our candidates over the top,” @alexandrasiera.

From the cutting-room floor: @justicedems raised over $260,000 for @JamaalBowmanNY from 11,500+ donors. The average contribution is $23.33.

That's more than 10% of his total haul.

.@DemMaj4Israel's leader @MarkMellman told me that that period was "critical."

But he also faulted Engel for failing to be aggressive enough on his own.

“No independent expenditure can make up for candidate and campaign problems."

.@JamaalBowmanNY made a point of preparing to confront the district's third rail -- Israel-Palestine -- from before he entered the race.

It began with a conversation with @TheJewishVote's Rachel McCullough, but also included discussions with @PeterBeinart and local rabbis.

Conversations on the left about pragmatism tend to focus on presentation, but successful candidates often make substantive compromises too ...

... To that end, though he was by all accounts sincere, Bowman stopped short of left orthodoxy on Israel-Palestine. For example, he embraced conditioning aid but not BDS.

An open letter to a critical local rabbi recognized Israelis' right to security. riverdalepress.com/stories/bowman…

DMFI's Mellman: Bowman "did work to obfuscate" the differences between himself and Engel on Israel.

Another headline for this story might be: How Successful Progressive Candidates Are Learning From Bernie, Warren's Mistakes.

Lefty candidates had to unlearn disdain for campaign tactics just because they've been used by establishment candidates.

“We need to reject corporate candidates. But too often, progressives are also throwing tried-and-tested campaign tools out the window..." @MonicaCKlein

NY-16 was also an example of a diverse array of actors on the institutional left working together in concert, thanks in no small part to the coalition work, diplomacy and experience of @NYWFP.

Ironically, @SeanMcElwee, others argue that @dccc blacklist of vendors that work with primary challengers helped incubate a cottage industry that reached new maturity in Bowman's race.

“The DCCC inadvertently created an ecosystem that ended up fostering a lot of innovation."

The sheer number of alumni of lefty campaigns since 2016 who staffed Bowman's bid or consulted for him, is astonishing. It's one tangible benefit of even losing bids like @AbdulElSayed's and @tiffany_caban's.

One thing that strikes me about this Bowman palm card from Feb./March is that the only foreign policy mention is at the bottom: "Jobs and education not wars an incarceration."

Bowman argued that Engel's overseas interventionism hurt the district, despite his domestic positions.